Good emoting vs bad emoting

Probably.

Are you disagreeing with my 'showing is better than telling' thesis, just letting me know I suck, or... Are you upset with me for using a typical example that any player, like you or me, may have done versus a hyperbolized example that very few would have violated? 

I hope this discussion goes somewhere because I think it's one worth having.

For the most part I agree with your example. The thing is I just don't think that many people do subtle well on Arm. I think people use think and feel a lot, but forget that other players can't see those. There's also a couple of caveats to consider.

Bad emotes:
using socials all the time
Power emotes (The muscular guy grabs you and smears blood all over your face)
Emoting once then emoting again five seconds later

Good emotes:
Using hemote to convey subtle thoughts and feelings
Using emotes to convey subtle thoughts and feelings

Caveat 1) I get that arm is a game where being in certain places, you probably don't want to emote two sentences. You really don't want to be in the middle of the grey forest typing an emote when a kryl run into the room with you.

Caveat 2) I also get that sometimes things are time sensitive and it can't turn into an hour long scene of you walking from the Byn compound to the Gaj.

I think what this really boils down to is a philosophy issue. For some people, not emoting well or at all is a choice. They don't want to convey the subtle or the secret, because they'll probably get called on it. They want to win Armageddon. So it's easier to not convey anything at all or to just go ahead and do what they're trying to do because fuck your feelings. Some people just aren't interested in doing a good emote.

There are certain things that we are taught via media and personal interaction to recognize. These are things that for the most part of instinctive and while you could go about describing the exact manner in which you look pleased, someone may fail to recognize you're pleased. What happens if I do a mechanical emote describing my pleased-ness and the noble I am sitting with says "You are not pleased?" and then I reply, "No m'Lord, I am quite pleased." I have gone from showing to telling and added in confusion.

Looking rather pleased with himself, Jeshin crosses his arms over his chest and looks down at Amos. "Lesson one, don't get cocky kid."

versus

Looking down at Amos, Jeshin crosses his arms over his chest and flashes a grin. "Lesson one, don't get cocky kid."

Functionally they're the same but I think the 1st imparts a bit more insight into the character without overtly telling someone. Another example...

Jeshin rolls his eyes in exasperation before turning to leave the training yard.

versus

Jeshin rolls his eyes before turning to leave the training yard.

In the second one I could be rolling my eyes in annoyance or disgust or indifference or whatever.

hunter has the ideal, jeshin has the limits

ur job as a player is to emote the physical part whatever the hell ur char is doing, not to spell out what its supposed to mean or how it is intended to be perceived

if ur are struggling to do that, jeshins examples should be the furthest u go in going past that

i think this is another example of what yevad said in the sexism thread about shooting for the moon so the pbase at least reaches the stars

if u emote with the ideal in mind ull usually do fine with ur emotes, and if u take game examples in mind ur allowed to give a little bit of context to ur emotes

there are also game echoes and emotes that show its perfectly fine to emote along the lines of what jeshin threw up if u have to

the doubled over sandy gith cries out in pain!
the doubled over sandy gith crumples to the ground


just dont even go near doing stupid shit like this:

the idiot laughs at the nobles joke

I vaguely recall hating ghaati for some reason, but this is good advice.

Also. You can get away with a little bit of meta stuff, if its fucking hilarious, and you do it once a week at most.

I agree with what Ghaati said too. The one example is clearly better than the other, and it's good advice. Everything following your first sentence is nothing that Ghaati said or commented on at all though, in either direction - for or against. That kind of confused me.

Anywho. 

You're the first one to say roleplay in this thread. Role, even. First one to bitch too.

I've seen good emotes from bad roleplayers (well, people who poorly roleplayed a given PC anyways). And you know... the opposite of that. Pretty !much goes without saying I guess.

It's an important factor, but it's a 'what' the PC is doing vs 'how' thing. I've met fantastic roleplayers that hardly emote, and then only the briefest of emotes - nods his head, shakes his head, etc. That fits certain character types very well.

You've obviously taken offense to my emoting preferences. I don't really care because I think my emoting preferences are fine. I am curious what yours are though, because it's fine to have them and you probably do. What lines make you go 'do not tell my PC what he thinks!' or whatever?